About the Book

Em Watts is a prisoner: Brandon Stark, heir to the Stark corporation family fortune, is holding her captive.

Em Watts is a liar: She's told all her friends she loves Brandon, and that everything is fine.

Em Watts is scared to death: She really doesn't know how she's going to get out of this one.

She's still in shock over the fact that the girl whose life she was forced to take over when her brain was transplanted into her body is alive—alive and furious with her for stealing what she claims was rightfully hers...

...including Brandon Stark, who's intent on finding out what that girl's secret was, and using it to get revenge on his father.

But that's not all Brandon wants…he wants Em. And not just to use her to trick Nikki into revealing that secret, and helping him secure his place as head of Stark Enterprises once and for all.

But Brandon's not the only one who wants something from Em. Christopher wants to use her to hurt Brandon…for taking her away from him, and to destroy Stark Enterprises.

Em Watts is tired: She's tired of being used. Tired of being lied to. Tired of being told who she can and cannot love. Tired of the lies she's being forced to live.

With everyone she loves furious with her for things she can't explain, Em's reached the end of her rope...what's the point of even going on?

But when she discovers the truth about Nikki's secret, she knows there's only one person she can turn to.

Will Christopher be able to put aside his personal feelings and help her expose her employer to the world? Is it even fair to get Christopher involved — since if he agrees, there's every chance that Stark Enterprises will try to have them both killed—this time, permanently?

Maybe it would be better for Em to just keep on running...

Publication Information

Scholastic, Inc. (US) published in hardcover June 2010
(Trade paperback edition published April 2011)

Germany: Bertelsmann

Indonesia: PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama

Poland: Amber Publishing

Sweden: Tiden

United Kingdom: Macmillan, trade paperback published September 2010 (massmarket paperback to publish June 2011)

Vietnam: Hoa Hoc Tro Publisher

Exerpt

***

I was in my bed at Brandon's beach house, and I was dreaming.

In my dream, Christopher had come to rescue me. He wasn't, it
turned out, mad about the whole thing where I'd told him I loved
Brandon and not him.

Quite the opposite, in fact. Our reunion was joyful . . . and
passionate. It was turning the ice that had been flowing in my veins
back to blood . . . warm, rich blood, that was making me hot . . .
shove-the-covers-down, hair-sticking-to-the-back-of-my-neck hot.

In my dream, Christopher was kissing me . . . gently at first, playful
kisses on the lips, light as the down feathers in the comforter that
I'd already pushed past my bare thighs.

Then, as I kissed him back, proving that it was true-I had never loved
Brandon. How could I?-the kisses became longer . . . deeper . . . more
passionate. My lips parted beneath his as his hands found their way
into my hair-spread like a fan across my pillow-his mouth cool against
mine because of the chill outside, the zipper from his leather jacket
almost unbearably cold as it pressed against my warm skin as he leaned
over my bed, whispering my name. . . .

I was so relieved to learn he hadn't even believed me that
bitterly cold morning outside of Dr. Fong's house when I'd
said I didn't love him. He'd known Brandon had been making me
say it.

He just hadn't known why.

The reason he hadn't believed it was because he'd loved me-the
real me-all along. Not me, Nikki, the girl who'd torn his heart
out of his chest and thrown it to the ground and then squashed it
underneath her Louboutins.

Me, Em. The girl in the photo he'd kept over his desk all those
months.

I opened my eyes with a gasp to find a hand pressed to my mouth. This
was no dream. This was really happening.

I knew who it was, of course. Who else could it have been? Who else
had been trying my doorknob (unsuccessfully, since I'd been
careful about locking it every night) all week? The hand over my mouth
was masculine. I could tell that just by its size and heaviness, even
if, in the darkness of my room, I couldn't see who owned it.

So of course I did the only thing I could: I clamped down on it with
my teeth as hard as I could.

What else was I going to do? Brandon had snuck into my room in the
middle of the night to do what guys like Brandon do to girls when
they're asleep. How dare he try to take advantage of me when I was
dreaming about someone else? Someone I actually liked. . . .

I bit down and didn't let go until I heard bones crunch.

"Ow. Jesus, Em!" the voice cried in a hoarse whisper. The
hand ripped away from my face, and for a second, I heard the sound of
leather rubbing on leather . . . a sleeve lifting away from the body
of a jacket as someone waved his hand back and forth.

Wait. My sleep-muddled mind tried to make sense of this. Why would
Brandon be wearing a leather jacket inside?

"What did you go and bite me for?" Christopher wanted
to know.

My mind reeled. Christopher? In my room? Here, at Brandon's house?
What was Christopher doing here? How had he gotten in? Had I not been
dreaming after all? Had he really been kissing me?

I sat up so fast, I jostled Cosabella, who'd been curled against
my neck.

"Christopher?" I whispered. "Is that really you? Oh, my
God, did I hurt you? Are you bleeding?"

"Of course it's really me," he whispered. He sounded so
annoyed, I wanted to grab his face and go back to kissing it, just
like in my dream . . . if that had really been a dream, and not
real. Only Christopher could sound that irritated with me. Wonderful,
amazing, easily annoyed Christopher. "Who else would it be? And
don't tell me Stark has been sneaking in here. Was that why the
door was locked? I had to use my library card to jimmy the lock.
Seriously, if he's been trying to get in here, I'll kill
him-"

I forgot that I was supposed to be giving Christopher the cold
shoulder, on pain of Brandon destroying everything and everyone I
loved.

I forgot that I was supposed to be pretending that Brandon and I were
an item now.

I was so overwhelmed at finding Christopher sitting on the side of my
bed, just like in my dream, that I threw my arms around him, pulling
him close and swearing to myself that I was never going to let him go.
I didn't even care that the metal rivets and zipper of his leather
jacket were icy cold against the parts of my bare skin that
weren't covered by the matching pink tank top and sleep boxers I
was wearing. Just like in my dream.

"Oh, my God, Christopher," I whispered, breathing the crisp
outdoorsy scent that was still clinging to his short hair.
"I'm so glad to see you."

His hold on me loosened just enough so that he could look down into my
face. Sometime while I'd been sleeping, a partial moon must have
come out . . . I could see its faint glow through a crack in the
curtains on the far side of the room. It didn't let in enough
light for me to see him by, because his back was to it and he was
thrown into silhouette by its glow. But he, I knew, could see me.

"Did you really think I'd believe you, of all people, were in
love with Brandon Stark?" he asked, in a softly chiding voice.
"It may have taken me a while to figure out who you really are
now, Em. But give me some credit. And now that I do know it's you,
I'm certainly not going to let you go that easily."

My heart gave a little somersault inside my chest. I kept holding on
to him. I don't think I could have let go of him, either, even if
he'd wanted me to. Which, thank God, he didn't.

He leaned down and kissed me, and I realized, as our lips touched,
that I hadn't been dreaming . . . that really had
been him kissing me. Kissing me awake. No wonder I'd been so hot.
. . . And that his kisses were doing to me again what they'd done
to me before, making me feel warm and protected in a way I hadn't
felt since . . . well, since the last time I'd been in his arms,
all too briefly back in my room at the loft during Lulu's holiday
party.

And just like then, before I was entirely aware of what was happening,
Christopher's hands were gently cradling my face as his lips moved
over mine . . .

. . . and then I was sinking . . . sinking slowly back against the
soft pillows behind me, with Christopher on top of me. Somehow
he'd shed that annoying leather jacket, and he was half on, half
off the bed.

But definitely half on me, a sensation I couldn't say I didn't
find enjoyable. I knew there were things we needed to say. Things I
needed to know, things I needed to tell him.

But how could I when his lips were doing such interesting things to
mine, and his hands-oh, his hands-had moved away from my face to tug
at my . . .

"Christopher," I said breathlessly, pulling my lips from
his. It was the hardest thing I think I'd ever had to do. In the
darkened room, there was nothing I wanted to do more than just let him
keep doing what he was doing.

But I couldn't. Someone had to stay sane. And I had a pretty good
idea that it wasn't going to be him.

"We have to focus," I said.

"Focus," he repeated. I could see that his blue eyes, so
close to mine, were half-lidded and looked dazed.
"Definitely."

He lowered his head to kiss me again.

But as much as I longed to let him, I knew I couldn't.

"No." I ducked out from beneath him and moved to the far
side of the bed, where Cosabella was sitting, licking herself. I
pulled her onto my lap to use her as a kind of doggy boy-defense
shield. "I'm serious. I'm happy to see you, too. But we
have to talk. What are you doing here?"

Christopher seemed to pull himself together. He lost the dazed
look-well, some of it-and said, sitting up straighter, "I think
it should be obvious what I'm doing here, Em. I'm here to
rescue you."

My heart gave another one of its crazy somersaults. Seriously,
everything this boy said-and did-was causing my internal organs to do
acrobatics.

"Rescue me?" Never in my life had anyone said anything as
sweet to me. He had come all the way from New York to rescue
me? Just when I had given up all hope that anyone I knew was even
thinking about me. Except Lulu and my mother. And my agent, Rebecca,
of course. "Oh, Christopher . . ."

It was all I could do to keep from crawling back across the bed and
into his arms.

But that, I knew, would be a huge mistake. Because I wouldn't have
the strength to crawl out of his arms again . . . not until things had
gone way further than either of us were ready to handle . . . at least
right now.

Pushing some of my sleep-tossed hair out of my eyes, I resolved to
follow my own advice and focus.

"How did you even get in here?" I asked. "Brandon keeps
this place locked up tighter than Fort Knox."

He pulled a small, sleek box from the pocket of his coat.

"Universal code grabber," he said. "Just the latest of
my cousin Felix's many do-it-yourself hacking devices he's
been working on to keep himself entertained. This one can run
something like a million potential code combinations a second before
it finds the right one. Used it to open Brandon's garage
door."

I stared at the little metal box in his hand. Okay. This was
definitely something I wouldn't dream. I wasn't so sure
Christopher's cousin Felix belonged under house arrest in his
mother's basement. I think maybe he belonged on the payroll of
some tech corporation in Silicon Valley.

"I suppose that's how you bypassed the security system,
too," I said.

"Oh, no," Christopher said, casually slipping the box back
into his pocket. "I just typed in Brandon's password for that
once I got inside. I figured he'd be stupid enough to use his
name-and I was right."

I couldn't help smiling at that one.

"So we're just supposed to walk on out of here," I said,
"the way you came in?" "Pretty much," he said.
"You ready?"

I had to laugh at that. The idea of me just walking out of
Brandon's house and away from my problems with Christopher
like-well, like it was that easy.

Where could we even go? It wasn't, like, with my face, we
wouldn't be instantly recognized anywhere we went.

And what about Steven, and Nikki, and their mom? I know I'm not
related to them-except by blood-but I owed them something for the way
they'd fought for me, even if it hadn't worked. Steven had
gotten so mad at Brandon for agreeing to Nikki's insane plan,
he'd finally had to leave the dining room entirely, for
fear-he'd told me later, when I'd met him in the hallway as
I'd been coming up to bed-that he'd smash Brandon's face
in. Later, he'd come into my room, telling me that we had to get
out of there before both Nikki and I ended up dead.

But go where? Steven could always rejoin his naval unit and slip back
under the sea in the submarine he'd left to look for his missing
mother. But what about Mrs. Howard, who couldn't even use her
credit cards or pay a bill for fear of Stark Enterprises tracking her
down?

Or Nikki, who chose to remain so blindly ignorant of the role
she'd played in causing all of this heartache?

I wanted to tell Christopher all these things.

But first, I had to tell him the most important thing of all-besides
the fact that I was madly in love with him, which I was pretty sure
from the previous few minutes' makeout session he already knew.

"Christopher," I said, breathlessly, "Nikki told us.
She told us what she tried to blackmail Brandon's dad over. What
she overheard that got her killed . . . and me into this mess in the
first place."

He reached out and smoothed some of my hair away from my face. I
closed my eyes for a second or two, relishing the warmth from his
fingers as they swept my skin. A wave of desire slammed into me with
all the force of a dodgeball hurled by Whitney Robertson.

Bad. I had it bad for this guy.

"Go on," he said.

"It just . . . ," I said, opening my eyes again when his
hand fell away from my face. "It doesn't make any sense, is
the thing. Nikki says she overheard Mr. Stark and a bunch of his
cronies chuckling in his office over the fact that new Stark Quarks
are going to arrive with some kind of undetectable spyware-bundled
with the new version of Journeyquest-that's going to upload
all of the information the user taps into it-any information he ever
enters into any websites, Priceline, Facebook, e-mails, that kind of
thing. And all of it is going to be stored on the mainframe at Stark
Corporate. All of it."

I looked at Christopher and shrugged.

"That's it?" he asked, his eyebrows raised.

"That's it," I said, nodding. "Nikki swears. She
didn't hear them say anything else. She says they were all
congratulating one another and toasting over it. I mean, I guess an
undetectable tracking software is pretty advanced, but one in three
PCs in America has spyware on it already and their owners don't
even know. What's the use of having all that information-and
we're talking about data from hundreds of thousands of homes,
maybe millions, because the Stark Quark is going to be the
lowest-priced laptop in history-if Stark's just going to store it
on the mainframe? It's not like they said they were going to use
it for anything. And you know the people who are going to be buying
the Quarks-they're pretty low-end-aren't rich. It's not
like Stark's going to be getting the credit card numbers of, like,
millionaires or anything. That's why I don't understand how
this could be worth killing Nikki Howard over. What's the big
deal?"

The moon had shifted. Now a shaft of its light fell full on
Christopher's face, and I could finally see him properly for the
first time since I'd woken to find him in my room . . . and in my
bed.

And for a second, I thought I spotted a glimpse of the dark
supervillain that I had been convinced he'd turned into after
reports of my "death," and his decision to try to avenge it
. . . that supervillain I thought was gone for good when he realized I
wasn't dead after all.

But no. The darkness-and hate-were still there. Maybe they would never
go away.

And I was going to have live with the knowledge that I was the one who
was responsible for that.

"Why does anyone commit murder?" he asked, in a low voice.

"I-" I blinked. "How should I know?"

"Three reasons," Christopher said. He held up one finger.
"Love." Another finger. "Revenge." And finally, a
third finger. "Profit. They tried to kill Nikki Howard when she
threatened to expose the truth about them."

"So?" I shook my head. "I still don't-"

"Robert Stark definitely has a plan for how he's going to
profit from the information he's stealing from the people who buy
his new PCs," Christopher said. "What we need to do is
figure out what that is. And how we're going to make him pay.
We've got a lot work ahead of us. We better get on it. Get dressed
and let's go."

I started disentangling my legs from the sheets. "Steven and his
mom are going to be fine," I said. "I can probably get them
up and out, no problem. But I'm not sure how we're going to
convince Nikki to come along with us willingly. She likes it here just
fine."

"Wait," Christopher said, putting a large hand on my
shoulder. "What are you talking about?"

"Nikki," I said, looking at him in the moonlight. Something
about his expression told me that the evil supervillain was not only
back, but here to stay. "She's not going to want to go. But
she has to, of course. It's not safe for her here."